Chapter Text
“So…many…stairs!”
It’s a sweltering July afternoon, and the stairwell in Louise’s new apartment building is practically a sauna. Bob drops the laundry basket piled with clean towels on the second floor landing and flops down next to it, blocking the way.
“Oh, it’s not that bad, Bobby. And this is the last load.”
Too tired to argue, Bob glares weakly at his wife, who was climbing behind him carrying a trash bag stuffed with Louise’s bedding. He’s gasping for air, dripping wet, but Linda is only slightly winded, her forehead shining. Crap, he really is out of shape! Still, he’s glad Linda is doing well; like Louise, he didn’t want her to exert herself at all, but Lin insisted, so they made sure she had the lightest items, and forced her to take lengthy breaks between trips.
“It should be illegal to build apartments this tall.”
“Don’t complain—she could be on the fourth floor!”
Bob groans. He’s made this trip five times today, and each one was worse than the one before it. He genuinely doesn’t think he could have done it if she were an extra floor up.
Linda smiles sympathetically; poor Bobby, he really needs regular exercise! Maybe this will convince him to take more walks with her. “Well, this is the last load, and hey, at least Teddy and Zeke took care of her furniture earlier today. And you sent Teddy home before he went after Zeke.”
“There is that,” he agrees with a sigh. Bob’s trying to be open-minded regarding Zeke, and he’s succeeding, for the most part, but Teddy, like a family dog, responded to the undercurrents, and Bob had to step between the men more than once before things got ugly. Besides that, he remembers the time he about broke his back moving Mr. Huggin’s monstrous Transformer of a bed with Teddy. Louise moved out with her bed, desk and chair, nightstand, and dresser—if she depended on her father with help for all that, she’d end up sleeping on a blow-up mattress and storing her clothes in random boxes.
“Come on, it’s one more floor, then you can flop on the couch in the nice cool air conditioning.”
Sighing deeply, knowing his legs are going to kill him tomorrow, Bob stands and picks up the basket, determined that this will be his last trip up to Louise’s apartment until Christmas, at least.
* * * * *
“’Bout time you made it old man!” Louise calls cheerfully. She and Daniel are tacking a couple of sheets over the wide east-facing window in an attempt to both gain privacy and block the sun. Daniel bought them yesterday from the thrift store down the street for that exact purpose. They’re dark blue, blue is Daniel’s favorite color, though one is darker than the other.
Bob doesn’t take the bait. He collapses with a groan on the beige couch—decorated with blue throw pillows—that Daniel moved in the day before. Next to him, inhaler in one hand and a forgotten glass of water in the other, Rudy, flushed but smiling, greets him with a wheezy nod.
Bob returns the nod, and for a second seriously considers asking Rudy for a hit off his inhaler. He’s interrupted by Zeke, exiting the kitchen with mismatched tumblers of water in his hands.
“Oh, thank you, Zeke!” Linda enthuses.
“Any time, Mrs. Belcher. You need to sit down or somethin’? I can bring out Louise’s desk chair.”
“Oh, I’m fine,” Linda assures him.
Zeke stops in front of Bob and hands him the second tumbler. “Here ya go, Mr. Belcher.”
Bob nods his gratitude and eagerly guzzles the water. The apartment isn’t much cooler than the stairwell—or outside, for that matter. He can only imagine that it will be equally cold during the winter.
Louise’s new apartment is six miles away from the Belcher place, almost the same distance as Tina’s flat in England as far as Bob is concerned. Well within walking distance of Seymore’s Bay Community College’s campus, this entire area is nicknamed Collegetown by the locals. Most of the apartments are rented out to students, and the surrounding businesses depend on students, professors, and hip but poor twentysomethings.
“Why move out now?” he asked Louise when she first told him of her plans. “Campus is a half-hour bus ride. Stay home and save money.”
He thought the money argument would convince her, but Louise shook her head with a slightly sad but determined smile. “It’s time for this baby bird to fly the nest.”
Sitting on a couch that feels as old, lumpy, and second-hand as himself, Bob sighs. He knows what she isn’t telling him; though their relationship is great now, they can’t go back to the way it was prior to Linda’s heart attack. It’s great, but different, and, though it saddens him, he understands; it’s time for his fiercely independent daughter to become the adult she always wanted to be. His gaze drifts to Zeke; At least she didn’t move in with him.
Zeke’s gone up a bit in Bob’s estimation over the past month. He’s not what Bob envisioned for his daughter, but the situation isn’t as bad as he feared, either. Zeke’s gainfully employed as Head Chef at Dusty’s Feedbag—quite a coup for such a young man—he moved out of Mudflap and Critter's place into the renovated DuMont apartments a few weeks ago, and, most importantly, he makes Louise happy. Zeke couldn’t possibly be more lovingly attentive to her; Bob’s sure Zeke’s eagerly anticipating the autumn rains, just so he can throw his jacket over a puddle to ease her crossing. They’re both deep in the throws of overwhelming, performative, all-consuming first love, and it would be cute if it weren’t often sickening. Yes, Bob can accept that Zeke is Louise’s boyfriend, but he doesn’t especially like it.
Louise and Daniel are admiring their handiwork when Zeke comes up behind her and wraps an arm around Louise’s shoulder.
“Looks good, darlin’. Want me to put the spices away for ya?”
Daniel flinches and shoots Louise a pleading look.
“Nah, we’ll take care of it.”
Zeke deflates slightly. “Well, okay babygirl.”
Bob makes a low, disgruntled noise in his throat.
Rudy turns to him. “Did you say something, Mr. Belcher?”
The older man shakes his head. Linda catches his eye and gives him a little warning frown. Bob stands abruptly.
“Do you know where the bathroom is, Rudy?”
“Sure, Mr. Belcher.” Rudy points down the hall. “Second door on the left.”
Bob hands his tumbler to Linda—Louise doesn’t have any tables in the living room yet—and heads down the hall. The bathroom door opens and Jessica emerges.
“Oh, ‘scuse me,” she says. “Uh, is Rudy okay?”
“Yeah, he used his inhaler. He seems pretty normal.”
“Normal-normal, or Rudy-normal?”
They exchange a little smile.
“Go see for yourself.”
Jessica does, straightening her shoulders as she heads to the living room.
Bob enters the bathroom, remembering what Louise told him the other day as they reorganized the walk-in together.
“Yeah, it’s kinda rough,” Louise said, tidily stacking crates of tomatoes on the freshly cleaned shelf. “Rudy thought they’d do a long-distance thing, but Jess wants to break up at the end of the summer.”
“That…that is rough,” Bob said, not terribly interested in her friend’s drama, but glad that his daughter is sharing the things that are important in her life.
“I mean, it sucks a bucket of bummer balls for both of them, but I’m just trying to stay out of it and be friends with everyone.”
“That’s smart,” Bob nodded, impressed that his headstrong daughter was repressing her urge to ‘fix’ things and just let them be. “And pretty smart of Jessica to not drag things out to avoid hurting his feelings. Long distance relationships are really hard.”
Bob washes his hands and takes a look around the bathroom. This building dates from the 1930’s, and would be a fine, charming place if the owner invested money in it. Instead, since its occupants consist mostly of a rotating roster of students, the landlord keeps things functional, and that’s about it. The tiles on the wall are a black and white art deco style, and the claw-foot bathtub is likely the original. Someone installed a showerhead as an afterthought as well as a curved bar for a curtain. The beveled mirror on the medicine cabinet is cracked in the corner.
Well, this is a perfect opportunity to cross one thing off his list. Bob pulls a mini flashlight out of his pocket, and, ignoring the protesting muscles in his lower back, begins quietly peering under the sink, into corners, checking out the closet. Louise’s new place is a permanent home for transients, and who knows how clean the previous tenants were? He wishes she’d taken him with her when she first looked at this place, though it would mean an extra trek up and down those endless stairs. Once roaches or mice establish themselves, they’re almost impossible to evict from a building like this.
* * * * *
Zeke sighs a little as he looks around Louise’s new kitchen. The metal cabinets were most recently painted seafoam green, the stove is a harvest gold colored antique, and the counters are scarred to hell and back because some idiot used them as cutting boards. This is not how he wants Louise to live—she deserves so much better! Had she waited just a few weeks until he came home, they’d move together into the tidy, surprisingly hip apartment he rented, but no…
He shakes his head, trying to loosen the bitter thought before it can take root. Part of him respects the plucky independence that inspired her to hope for the best—that he’d come back to her—but plan for the worst. And there are some advantages to her having a platonic roommate before she takes her place as lady of his house, right? Besides the fact that she’s given him time to piece together a fine home for the two of them, she’s learning the hard lessons of adulthood without associating them with him, and that, Zeke decides, is a blessing.
Zeke was astonished to discover how very ignorant Louise is regarding apartment rentals, though he later realized it shouldn’t be a surprise. After all, she just turned eighteen, and has always lived in the same place with stable parents. How could she know you have to pay a fee when you apply for apartments? Or that utility companies don’t turn on the gas or electricity for free, and often require deposits, too? It didn’t occur to Louise to discuss a cleaning schedule with Daniel or how they’ll divide groceries until Zeke mentioned it to her.
“Hey Zeke!” Louise bellows from the other room.
“Yeah, baby?”
“Andy and Ollie are on their way. Could you take out some plates and stuff?”
Zeke looks around the kitchen, the only room not overrun with boxes, and doesn’t know where to begin. “Sure! Um—“
“Plates are in the cabinet to the left of the stove, glasses to the right,” Daniel calls out. “Uh, utensils are in the drawer next to the refrigerator. Do you need me to help you find them?”
Zeke rolls his eyes a little, but calls out cheerfully, “Nah man, I got it! Y’all keep on doin’ what yer doin’.”
He chuckles quietly to himself. Daniel’s a nice kid, albeit an odd one, with his blue obsession and whatnot. There’s no sexual chemistry between Louise and her new roommate, just like she said, but there’s still a little part of Zeke that resents the guy; that weirdo usurped his, Zeke’s, place! Still, Zeke likes him overall, and is determined to make Daniel his friend, for Louise’s sake.
Zeke begins pulling out plates, forks for the side salad Louise mentioned earlier, and glasses, grateful for the perfect cover to check out the kitchen. He removes the little flashlight from the clip on his belt loop and begins looking deep into the corners of the cabinets and drawers. He tries to be an easy-going guy, and there’s nothing he’d deny Louise, but he draws the line at letting his woman live in a vermin-infested apartment. All he needs is one whiff of roaches, the sight of one tiny little mouse turd, and he’ll…he’ll…
Zeke’s so absorbed with his investigation he doesn’t notice Bob enter the kitchen, his empty tumbler needing a refill. Bob frowns slightly at the younger man, crouched lower and more comfortably than Bob ever could, muttering to himself as he shines the flashlight under the sink.
Bob’s eyes widen as he realizes what Zeke’s doing, and his mustache twitches with a smile. Zeke rolls onto his hands and knees and half-crawls into the storage space, running his hand over the boards.
“Zeke.”
Startled, Zeke flinches and wangs his head on the pipe. “Shit! Fuck—uh, crap, sorry Mr. Belcher.”
Zeke backs out and stands up, turning a red face to Bob as he rubs the side of his head, the flashlight still in hand.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,” Bob says. “What’re you doing in there?”
Guilt flashes in Zeke’s eyes, and he tries to recover with a broad, easy smile. “Lookin’ fer the dishes.”
Bob casts a pointed look at the dishes Zeke already piled onto the counter. The young man’s gaze follows, and his shoulders slump with defeat.
Having made his point, Bob decides to take pity on the guy. He digs his own mini flashlight out of his pocket. “I already checked the bathroom.”
Relief spreads over Zeke’s face. “Maybe you could keep ‘er distracted while I finish checkin’ here?”
The men share a conspiratorial smile.